and ivhatever little may remain, the retina of the

eye will succeed in finding it. In thia place nothing — not the faintest ray of light. It mazed me! My head was now wholly lost. I raised my arms, trying the effects of the feeling in getting against the cold stone wall. It was painful in the extreme. Madness must have taken possession of nie. I knew not what I did. I began to run, to fiy, rushing at haphazard in this inextricable labyi'inth, always going downwards, running wildly underneath the terrestrial crust, ]ike an inhabitant of the subter- ranean furnaces, screaming, roaring, howling, un- til bruised by the pointed rocks, falling and picking myself up all covered with, blood, seeidng madly to drink the blood which dripped from my torn fea- tures, mad because this blood trickled over my face, and watching always for this horrid wall which ever presented to me the fearful obstacle against which I could but daah my head. Where was I going? It was impossible to say. Several hours passed in this way. After a long time, having utterly exhausted my strength, I fell a heavy inert mass along the side of the tunnel, and lost all consciousness of existence! CHAPTER XXV The Whispering Gallery THEN at last I same back to a sense of life ' and being, my face was wet; but wet as I soon knewiwith tears. How long this state of insensibility lasted, it is quite impossible for me to say. I had no means left to me of taking any ac- count of time. Never since the creation of the world, had such a solitude as mine existed. I was com- pletely abandoned. After my fall I had lost much blood. I had felt myself flooded with the life-giving liquid, My first sensation was perhaps a natui'al one. Why was I not dead? Because I was alive, there was something left to do. I tried to make up my mind to think no longer. As far as I was able, I drove away all ideas, and utterly overcome by pain and grief, crouched against the granite wall. I commenced to feel the fainting coming on again, with the sensation that this was the last struggle before complete annihilation,—- when, on a sudden, a violent uproar i-eached my ears. It had some resemblance to the prolonged rumbling voice of thunder, and I clearly distinguished sonorous voices, lost one after the other, in the distant depths of the gulf. Whence came this noise? Again I listened with deep attention. I was extremely anxious to hear if the strange and inexplicable sound was likely to be renewed! A whole quarter of an hour elapsed in painful expectation.' Deep and solemn silence reigned in the tunnel. So still that I could hear the beatings of my own heart! 1 waited, waited, waited with a strange kind of hopefulness. Suddenly my ear, which leaned accidentally against the wall, appeared to catch the faintest echo of a sound. I thought that I heard vague, incoher- ent and distant voices. I quivered all over with ex- citement and hope! "It must be hallucination," I cried. "It cannot be! it is not true!" But nol By listening more attentively, I really did convince myself that what I heard was the sound of human voices. To make any meaning out of the sound, however, was beyond my power, I was too weak even to hc:tr distinctly. Still it was a positive fact that some one was speaking. Of that I was certain. There was a moment of fear. A dread fell upon Tiij soul that it might be ray own words brought back to me by a distant echo. Perhaps without knowing it, I might have been crying aloud. I res- olutely closed my lips, and once more placed my ear to the huge granite wall. Yes, for certain. It was in truth the sound of human voices. I now by the exercise of great determination dragged myself along the sides of the cavern, until I reached a point where I could hear more distinct- ly. But though I could detect the sound, I could only make out uncertain, strange, and incompre- hensible words. They reached my ear as if they had been spoken in a low tone — murmured, as it were, afar olf. At last, I made out the word for- lorad repeated several times in a tone betokening gi-eat mental anguish and sorrow. What could this word mean, and who was speak- ing it? It must be either my uncle or the guide Hans! If, therefore, I could hear them, they must surely be able to hear me. "Help," I cried at the top of my voice; "help, I am dying!" I then listened with scarcely a breath; I panted for the slightest sound in the darkness — a cry, a sigh, a question! But silence reigned supreme. No answer came! In this way some minutes passed. A whole flood of ideas flashed through my mind. I be- gan to fear that my voice, weakened by sickness and suffering, could not reach my companions who were in search of me. "It must be they," I cried; "what other men can by any possibility be buried a hundred miles below the level of the earth?" The mere supposition was preposterous. I began, therefore, to listen again with the most breathless attention. As I moved my ears along the side of the place I was in, I found a mathematical point as it were, where the voices ap- peared to attain their maximum of intensity. The word forlorad again distinctly reached ray ear. Then carae again that rolling noise like thunder which had awakencid me out of torpor. "I begin to understand," I said to myself, after some little time devoted to reflection; "it is not through the solid mass that the sound reaches my ears. The walls of my cavernous retreat are of solid granite, and the most fearful explosion would not make uproar enough to penetrate them. The sound must come along the gallery itself. The place 1 was in must possess some peculiar acoustic prop- erties of its own." Again I listened; and this time — yes, this time — I heard my name distinctly pronounced: east as it were into space. It was my uncle, the Professor, who was speaking. He was in conversation with the guide, and the word which had so often reached ray ears, forlorad, was a Danish e::preasion. Then I understood it all. In order to malte my- self heard, I too must speak as it were along the side of the gallery, which would carry the sound of my voice just as the wire carries the electric fluid from point to point. But there was no time to lose. If ray companions were only to remove a few feet from where they stood, the acoustic effect